Irish Arts Review

Where Neither Moth nor Rust Doth CorruptAuthor(s): Michael DempseySource: Irish Arts Review (2002-), Vol. 23, No. 3 (Autumn, 2006), pp. 116-119Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25503443 .

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^B WHERE NEITHER MOTH NOR RUST DOTH CORRUPT ARCHITECTURE

Where neither

moth nor rust

doth corrupt

MICHAEL DEMPSEY previews Hughie O'Donoghue's

interpretation of the liturgy at the Bon Secours Chapel, Galway

and discovers an oasis for contemplation

1 External view of

the chapel taken

from the plum slate

Hospital courtyard.

2 Detail of the glass wall painting, a

starry sky appears

referencing Advent,

Nativity, and the

journey of the Magi

The Bon Secours Sisters see healing as a way of helping

individuals become 'whole' - physically, spiritually, and

intellectually. Their private hospital in Galway is situ

ated on the Dublin Road as you enter the east side of

the city. The hospital underwent a major transformation last year

that upgraded both the quality and scope of facilities available in

the West by including a new day hospital, an endoscopy facility and

a new chapel. A major single-storey extension to the rear unfolds as

a series of interconnected departments with the 'roofscape'

designed to maximise natural light and ventilation. Straight lines

and modernist materials of metal and glass express the functional

aesthetic of this extension. In contrast, the new chapel, at the very

heart of the new wing is expressed by poured organic curves in the

sculptural materials of concrete, timber and glass.

Hugh Kelly of Murray O'Laoire/Brian O'Connell Associates,

Healthcare Architects was appointed the project architect for the

new development. He has worked in Galway before, developing

the Learning Resource Centre for the Galway-Mayo Institute of

Technology as well as being the 'Architect in Residence in Schools'

with Galway County Council and Galway Corporation. He is no

stranger to pitching radical forms and the innovative use of new

El technology to his clients. In this project,

the chapel's expression is metaphorically

derived from ripples created from stones

cast into a body of water. Orientated on an

east-west axis the chapel has two curved

walls, one of translucent glass and the

other concrete. The east facing glass wall

was seen as an opportunity to bring colour

and light into the space (Figs 1 &2). At first Hugh Kelly explored the idea of

sandwiching a coloured fabric between the

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW AUTUMN 2006

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^B WHERE NEITHER MOTH NOR RUST DOTH CORRUPT ARCHITECTURE

3 Painted model

design for glass wall

Photo: Anthony Hobbs

4 At night the

glass wall is

illuminated and the

liturgical cycle can

be interpreted

externally

5 The altar is

enclosed by the

glass wall and the

opaque wall

encloses the

congregation

glass sheets of the curved wall. Like a Japanese screen this would

protect those in the chapel from dazzling sunlight and would pro

vide an element of privacy. He then considered the ecclesiastical

tradition of stained glass windows to provide colour and form but

the segmented method of this art form would work against the

curve of the wall. A more fluid solution was required and the

option of commissioning an artwork was decided on. He

approached the Bon Secours Sisters with the idea of inviting

Hughie O'Donoghue to interpret the liturgical themes presented

in the brief and they agreed.

The depth of colour and abstraction of form of Hughie

O'Donoghue's work seemed to lend themselves to this project.

When Hugh Kelly introduced the concept of the project to

O'Donoghue, he was immediately interested in the idea of his

work being shown in a different way - in this case being illumi

nated from behind.

Hughie O'Donoghue sees himself as an artist not afraid to

tackle the big themes. Every commission is approached on the

basis of whether it is interesting to him as a challenge. Producing

an artwork for a chapel inevitably draws comparisons with other

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modern artists. The Rothko Chapel in Houston or the Chapel of

the Rosary in Vence created by Henri Matisse comes to mind.

What particularly interested Hughie O'Donoghue was the chance

of working with new materials and technology on such an ambi

tious scale. He also accepted that producing a public work of art

places different responsibilities on an artist to creating a painting

in one's studio.

The essential challenge was to produce a composition for the

curved glass wall that would work in the round. Unlike tradi

tional chapels, there is no fixed point from which the window

should be seen. Hughie O'Donoghue created a painted model

design for the glass wall by using oil and mixed media on mdf

board (Fig 3). The composition took account of its undulating

form. It would work as a single image but also as nine individual

separate panels. The glass panels were made in Barcelona by a

company, which has specialised since the 1930s in glass manu

facturing. Hughie O'Donoghue decided to increase the chro

matic intensity of his usual palette to account for any loss of

strength in the process. A technique was used where high-reso

lution photographic images were printed onto a sheet of inter

layer film. A decision was made at the factory to put a

semi-opaque white film between the image on the interlayer and

the outer face of glass. The films were then sandwiched between

the two sheets of curved glass. At night artificial light from

within the chapel would illuminate the image on the glass wall

and the image could be interpreted externally.

The composition moves from left to right and makes reference

to episodes in the liturgical cycle. In the extreme left panels a

starry sky appears referencing Advent, The Nativity, the journey

of the Magi and also points of navigation through life. Below this

is a mountain and images of palm fronds from a photograph

taken by O'Donoghue in Israel in the 1980s. This references

Christ's entry into Jerusalem. Overlaid in this section of the com

position is a passage from the Sermon on the Mount which has

been etched into the glass:

Lay not up for yourself treasures upon earth, where moth and

rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: but

lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor

rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor

steal: for where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

(Matthew 6) As the image cycle moves from left to right, through colour

and form, the Sacred Heart, emanating light in the form of an

organic cross, and the garden of Gethsemane are referenced, by a

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW AUTUMN 2006

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collage of symbolic motifs overlaid one into another. To the right

of the cross is an image of an olive tree photographed by

O'Donoghue in the Garden of Gethsemane. The final panel of

intense blue represents infinity, its dark, almost opaque blue, gen

erating warmth from the sun on a winter's day. It is well docu

mented that Hughie O'Donoghue gained his first major

commission in Florence and that he spent the next twelve years

producing paintings, drawings and prints on the theme of

Christ's Passion and Crucifixion. However his diversity in tack

ling other themes such as emigration, loss, identity and sense of

place was evident in two separate shows recently in Galway.

During a spell of spectacular July sunshine, I visited the Bons

Secours Hospital. Approaching the organic form of the chapel, I

was intrigued by the sculptural quality of the building. It is a

small building with a human scale, which allows one to see it in

the round. Enfolding walls of concrete and glass act as a vessel to

contain a sacred space. The concrete wall holds a wonderful tim

ber impression as a result of careful shuttering. After the form

work was struck, the timber shuttering was cleaned down, reused

externally and internally and painted white (Fig 5). Perhaps a nat

ural finish on the timber would have been more in

keeping with the simplicity of the concept?

I entered the chapel passing through a curved

opening. The curve continued, conch-like, and led

me to the heart of the space. There the form of the

glass wall surrounded me. Images dissolved and

flowed into one another and reminded me of the psy

chedelic effect of watching 'the journey to infinity' in

O'Donoghue informs viewers of the liturgical cycle through the tradition of church

painting, but it is not

necessarily an illustration of a closed belief system

Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. The overall theme of flowing water is repeated in the glass panels where broad sweeping brush

strokes from the left of the composition lead the eye to the central

motif of the illuminated cross. Layers of impasto paint and pho

tomontage build up the image. Abstract blobs of colour and

ambiguous forms invite the mind to visualise liturgical narratives.

It is a sensual experience that offers the viewer an oasis where the

whole self can be occupied in contemplation. Unfortunately, the

physical and tactile nature of the painting's surface is lost by the

enlargement of the original artwork and its transfer to glass.

O'Donoghue informs viewers of the liturgical cycle through

the tradition of church painting, but it is not necessarily an illus

tration of a closed belief system. I put it to him 'Is there a danger

that he becomes known only as a religious painter?' He replied 'It

is work freely made with all that that implies. I have always said

about my work that I make no attempt to control its meaning. I

believe that this is always beyond the grasp of the artist. Meaning

in art is something that accrues, it is a product of the process.'

MICHAEL DEMPSEY is a curator and artist.

Architectural photography by Ros Kavanagh.

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11 9

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